Team USA men’s basketball squad needs to win a fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Paris or start looking for a new homeland, according to TNT analyst and original Dream Team star Charles Barkley.

‘Listen, if they lose, we can’t let them back in the country,’ Barkley told Philadelphia 76ers star Paul George’s podcast.’ ‘We can’t. I’ll tell them, ‘You can’t come back.’

The US faces Serbia in the semifinals of the Paris Games on Thursday night. The Americans are 2-0 against Serbia this summer, winning an exhibition last month and then winning again in the Olympic opener for both teams.

Obviously the expectations for Team USA remain as high today as they were in 1992, when Barkley, Michael Jordan & Co. breezed to a gold medal in Barcelona.

Of course, Barkley’s Dream Team only had to face a dozen other NBA players, while this year’s squad is contending with 69 stars from the world’s top league.

Chuck says Team USA men’s basketball squad needs to win a fifth consecutive Olympic gold

LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Anthony Edwards celebrate Team USA’s win over Puerto Rico

‘Have the international teams gotten better, 100 percent,’ Barkley said.

Still, the Hall of Famer argued, Team USA has no excuse to finish anywhere but first.

‘They’re still not better than the United States,’ Barkley continued. ‘You take away ‘Joker’ [Nikola Jokic] and Giannis [Antetokounmpo] and Luka [Doncic] — all three guys are great, great players. Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander] is great also, but we still got the next 10 best players in every game.’

And Team USA is so deep that Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum is coming off coach Steve Kerr’s bench despite his status as an All-Star and reigning NBA champion.

‘Ain’t nobody bringing anybody off the bench better than Jayson Tatum,’ Barkley added before mentioning another ‘bench’ player in Kevin Durant.

‘Ain’t nobody bringing anybody off the bench better than Kevin Durant,’ he continued. ‘The international teams have gotten better, but there’s never an excuse for the United States not to win the gold medal. We got the best team, we’ve got the best players by far.’

Barkley won a pair of Olympic gold medals, the first coming with the Dream Team in 1992

Kerr knows something unexpected is going to happen when his team plays against Serbia in the semifinals of the Paris Olympics. Maybe Serbia will change its lineup. Maybe Jokic will play the entire game. Or maybe the surprise will be that there’s no surprise at all.

Whatever the case, Kerr knows the Americans have to be ready for anything.

The U.S. will look to reach the gold-medal game for the 18th time in its 20 Olympic appearances when it faces Serbia.

Barkley’s Dream Team had to contend with just 12 other NBA players at the 1992 Games

‘Serbia is really good,’ Kerr said. ‘We can´t get lulled to sleep because we beat them twice. We have to be prepared for their best effort.’

The final four teams at the Paris Games aren’t an overly surprising mix, and the semifinal games are both rematches from contests earlier in this tournament.

World Cup champion Germany takes on Victor Wembanyama and host France in the first semifinal, while World Cup runner-up Serbia takes on the four-time defending Olympic champion U.S. in the second semifinal. Germany, Serbia and the U.S. were all favored in their quarterfinal wins over Greece, Australia and Brazil, respectively, while France pulled the lone surprise of sorts by ousting Canada.

Serbia rallied from 24 points down to beat Australia. Germany – which had barely trailed at all in the tournament before Tuesday – erased a 12-point deficit to beat Greece.

‘We stayed together. We didn’t panic, we stayed together,’ Germany coach Gordie Herbert said. ‘Adversity´s good. The quarterfinal is one of the toughest games to play. And we just talked about enjoying the moment, but it´s easy to say, not so easy to do.’

The medal games are Saturday. Thursday’s winners play for gold, Thursday’s losers play for bronze.

‘It´s a great feeling to be able to make sure we play on the last day of the tournament, to make sure we give ourselves a chance to win a medal,’ France guard Evan Fournier said. ‘And hopefully it´s going to be the right one.’